


Secrets for Calm

by marginalia



Category: Black Books
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-08-06
Updated: 2005-08-06
Packaged: 2018-10-07 11:00:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10358961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marginalia/pseuds/marginalia
Summary: Randomly-selected header bits all from (what else?)The Little Book of Calmby Paul Wilson.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Randomly-selected header bits all from (what else?) _The Little Book of Calm_ by Paul Wilson.

_**Discover**  
It's hard to feel tense when you're learning something you want to know.  
And you can learn from the most unlikely places._

Bernard Black considers everything. Granted, not for long generally, and some weightier considerations must be followed by a drink.

Perhaps all considerations must begin and end with a drink, but the considering, it always happens.

Bernard considered homosexuality through several relatively drinkable bottles of wine and one that was not even a passable imitation. He looked at each side of the issue and determined that the dancing and personal hygiene requirements were far beyond him. He lived by this until he met Manny, and discovered that the requirements were perhaps not as _required_ as he had been led to believe.

_**Pat something**  
Share your life with a pet -- being generous with your affection to it -- and you'll have an appreciative assistant in your efforts to become calm._

Affection, Bernard has long known, is overrated. If you are kind, people begin to expect it, and they are only going to be let down. If you are generally a bastard, causing pain wherever you go, then even an accidental kindness can come as a malicious surprise. To both parties.

Besides, affection isn't a requirement for all pets. Take Manny for instance. He makes a good deal of noise about social niceties like "please" and "thank you" and not squashing other people's hands in sandwich toasters, but in the end he always comes back and makes a cup of tea.

_**Pretend you're human**  
Leave it to others to be perfect, to be wonderful. Be content with what you are -- you'll be much more relaxed as a result._

Manny cooks and draws and plays piano. Fran sometimes tells Bernard that this should be enough, that Manny is exactly what he's needed all along, but she's never around when he's levitating trollops, er, Trollope across the shop. No one needs that. It makes one feel inferior, or at least mildly deluded.

Living with perfection is exhausting, but even Manny knows that now. Bernard watched him over at Goliath, the life sucked out of him by pastel robots and fluorescent lighting, and then he watched him come back.

They'll never be calm, but they are some strange form of content.


End file.
